Jesse at Pandagon just read this Houston Chronicle story about "snowflake babies" -- frozen embryos adopted from fertility clinics:

The couple [J.J. and Tracy Jones] was matched with and adopted 10 unused embryos from a family in Michigan. Three survived the thawing process (the survival rate is about 50 percent), and were implanted in Tracy's womb. One took hold.

He makes a good point: It's OK that nine of the ten died -- even though Tracy Jones says embryos are "human beings from conception"?

Which brings up something I've wondered about for a long time: Why doesn't the "culture of life" crowd demand that all fertility clinics be shut down -- or at least that they be required to seek adoptive parents for as many embryos as possible and keep the rest frozen indefinitely? The right-to-lifers have gone way beyond traditional abortion -- stem-cell research on non-implanted embryos is unacceptable, the morning-after pill is unacceptable -- so why is fertility clinics' destruction of what RTLers consider fully human life OK?

The old answer was, of course, that these people don't really hate abortion -- they hate sex. But where do stem cells fit in, then? And what about Terri Schiavo?

I have a new theory: It's not that they hate sex. It's that they admire pain.

They think pain and suffering are virtuous. They don't like "sex without consequences" (sex with contraception and abortion as options, sex with cervical cancer prevented by a possible future vaccine, gay sex with condoms) because if you have sex, there should be a chance you'll suffer -- suffer an unwanted pregnancy you have to bring to term, suffer an STD, suffer an HIV death.

That's why they wanted Terri Schiavo's tube left in -- because they saw suffering and thought it was good. That's why embryonic stem-cell research bothers them -- the "babies" should live, and that's more important than relieving the suffering of the sick.

Fertility clinics lead to no unacceptable sensual pleasure and prevent no virtuous suffering. So, even though these clinics routinely discard embryos, they're OK.

Just a theory....